"The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music" (W.W Norton, 320 pages, $25.95), by Richard Williams: Richard Williams acknowledges early on in "The Blue Moment" that there is not much more to say about Miles Davis' jazz masterpiece "Kind of Blue" that hasn't already been covered in two 2001 books by other authors.
Rather, his book is an attempt to examine the groundbreaking album's impact on the music that followed it: "Like the ripples from a pebble dropped into an ever expanding lagoon." Recorded in 1959, "Kind of Blue" is certainly one of the most popular and influential jazz albums of all time with its modal approach signaling a shift away from conventional chord changes to more static patterns that freed up the musicians to improvise in new directions.
But while there is little doubt about the album's importance, Williams follows the pebble's ripples a little too far, spotting its influence in everything from the minimalist pioneer Terry Riley's semirandom composition "In C" to the misshapen drumming of The Velvet Underground's Maureen Tucker to U2's anthemic arena rock. Williams' overly inclusive approach is apparent by the third chapter, where he discusses Greco-Roman conception of the color blue — they didn't give it much thought, apparently — to the use of blue dyes in Asia during the Neolithic period.
Picasso's Blue Period gets a mention, as do blue jeans and the indigo rags of nomadic Tuaregs. By the time Williams gets around to International Klein Blue, a color developed by French artist Yves Klein, the reader's face may be positively cerulean.
http://www.ctpost.com/entertainment/article/Blue-Moment-examines-influence-of-Kind-of-Blue-449149.php
NOTE: The sound is direct from uncompressed .flac files (not such a good idea for YouTube - I was hoping for a "high-quality selection"). You probably should adjust your audio (talk about transient waves!!).
False starts and un-faded endings, from the greatest (selling) jazz album of all time (plus added video). It's easy to see why - I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't like it (especially women). It was a sort of Led Zeppelin IV for its age, I suppose (only 12 years separates them).
I'm a huge Miles fan (check the video response) - I even wanted to join his band, after seeing them live (in Sydney) in 1988. But that's another story - it's on my MySpace blog (Benny said I should have asked - but I'd just started my law degree).
My uncle Al (van) Starrex made a name for himself as a jazz writer and reviewer in New York. Before that, he was a jazz radio broadcaster (and worked on some famous movies*) in Ceylon/Sri Lanka. He interviewed Dizzy Gillespie - and check the liner notes of (most of) the early Robert Parker "Jazz Classics In Stereo" CDs.
My home: http://www.myspace.com/starrex
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